Advice for a future chuck keeper

Hi All,

I have loitered around for a while and whilst I am keen to keep chucks, I am worried about my garden location.
I have dogs and an artifical lawn ( :blink:) so I am looking to put the chuck house on concrete flags. 
Is this advisable?
Could I put anything on top of the flags to keep the chickens healthly and happy?
Is this a suitable location for chooks?

I am looking to keep 2-3 chooks for egg laying.

I am also quite worried about mites so am looking to steer away from wooden houses.
Do you recommend http://www.doodlehouse.co.uk/home or http://www.chickencoopsdirect.com/eco-chicken-loft.htm

Thanks 
 

whatever housing you choose -allow for at least a couple more. Chicken keeping is seriously addictive. Or in perhaps mine or joyful's case perhaps 10 plus more & the odd duck & goose..........

It really depends on what space you have, my big arks come on a pallet and weigh 70 kgs so rather heavy. They measure 5 feet by four however they do smaller ones.
I will point out though that I don't like their runs - the gauge of metal thickness is excellent but the holes are too big and there isn't a skirt to prevent foxes digging under. So if you was to get a solway ark then buy without the run and construct your own run. They now do a small ark with a smaller holed run but not sure if that has the skirt around it.
Eglu cube is ugly but the run is great (you do need several extension pieces though) and the eglu classic is brilliant if you only want 2 or 3 hens.
There are several other plastic houses such as the green frog designs and the doodle houses but neither of those offer a run so again you would have to construct your own.
At the end of the day it all boils down to personal preference and I would if I was you take time to be absolutely sure and save your self a lot of money instead of wasting your hard earned pennies on cheap imports (unlike me when I first started  ).

If you must have a plastic one I'd prefer the EGU classic for a small (3) number of hens.   The recycled types (and I've only seen the Green Frog ones in the flesh) are horrid black interiors like the blackhole of Calcutta for chickens.   I hate the perches which allow the birds to paddle about and pick in their droppings.  Parallel roosting bars are preferable and only the EGLU has an acceptable (though far from ideal) arrangement.  The popholes on all the designs are unconventional from the time honoured drop down pophole which is easy to automate if you think this might be important in the future.  The access and ease of maintenence of the EGLU classic sets it apart from the others.  At least the quirky design seems to be aimed at producing something targeted at the needs of the birds and not just a compromise to suit the materials.

I tend to agree that having it stood on the ground isn't ideal but you can always site it on a table (or make a platform).  

Just from reviewing the websites Omlet is the only company who seem to be coming at the problem from a knowledge of chickens.  The recycled plastic houses look like a solution looking for an application.  Basically they look a bit of a compromise designed to suit the materials rather than the birds. The Doogle house looks like the best of a poor bunch at least it doesn't look like a disgusting eyesore.  I agree the Solway arks website is not very informative being particularly weak on internal details which I'm personally very interested in.  Cleaning them out looks like a on your knees job to me so I'm not convinced about the ease of cleaning.  Access to the run also looks poor and the idea of having the feeder on the outside with holes for the chickens to poke their heads through is reminiscent of a battery cage system which I particularly dislike.

The Eglu Classic doesn't look out of place in a garden though the Cube isn't so pretty.

None of these houses have a viable run system though to be fair neither do most wooden houses either.

If red mite are your only concern with wood there are easy solutions to treating the wood to make them immune to infestations of any parasites.  However finding a well designed and made house built from robust materials for a reasonable price is no less a problem.  However you seem determined to go with plastic and if i was going to get a small plastic house for a "patio" situation I'd go for the EGLU on a wooden platform within an aviary type run which would probably need to be bespoke designed and built.  It's always the case that new keepers always start from the house rather than the run which in most cases is the key element in designing your chickens home.  Your space and method of husbandry should determine the design.

HF